Help me to help my overthinking, potentially OCD kiddo...

[Ann.without.an.e]

DS (9th grade) is super intelligent and a good writer, but he also struggles when answers aren't black/white, this might be why he loves math and is math strong. He is really struggling this year with some assignments for an online class. I know he has a decent reading speed/comprehension (he took the PSAT for this first time this year and literally made a perfect score for the reading section). He simply way, way, way overthinks open ended writing assignments, questions, or things like dialectic notes that are turned in. He spends far too much time trying to find the perfect answer. He is doing really well with the assignments, but they take him so much time that it feels like school is his life. We have battled through this for an entire semester. I've encouraged him, really pressed him to just get it done and not look for perfection, etc. He is just stuck in a rut with this and it is making my kiddo hate school. I found a therapist for OCD for him to try and his first appointment is in 2 weeks. What else can I try to help him with this? Any resources or thoughts y'all have are greatly appreciated. 

Thank you so much 

Edited February 6 by Ann.without.an.e

[KSera]

Just to throw this out there: any chance he has ADHD? Taking forever to do assignments was what it looked like for one of mine and there are links from ADHD to perfectionism and anxiety. 

[Ann.without.an.e]

2 minutes ago, KSera said:

Just to throw this out there: any chance he has ADHD? Taking forever to do assignments was what it looked like for one of mine and there are links from ADHD to perfectionism and anxiety. 

 

I don't think so? But maybe? I need to look into it more. Would they evaluate him for this at the therapist?

[Lori D.]

Maybe practice timed short essay writing (like the old 30 min. SAT/ACT essays, from a prompt) once a week?

Take the stress off, make it totally just a practice that you BOTH do. Work up from 10 minutes, so at first, it's NOT even writing -- it's just about picking a prompt, deciding on a position (pro/con), and seeing what you can come up with for reasons of support for the position. Then share thoughts -- you could each pick different prompts to reduce any anxiety about competition, lol. 

As you both get more comfortable with "faster thinking" and deciding on reasons and examples of support, take 15 minutes and work on actually writing the thinking out as a complete paragraph. Eventually expand to 30 minutes and write out as a short essay. Totally meant as practice that you then give each other gentle feedback. Again, not done as a graded assignment, so hopefully it takes the pressure off with coming up with THE PERFECT answer.

Just a thought! Wishing you all the BEST in finding what helps. Warmest regards, Lori D.

[Clemsondana]

My older struggled with this some.  At some point, we had a conversation where kid said 'I always try to do my best work' which is sort of what we'd said when they were younger - do your best.  It took time to help kid understand that, especially as you get older, what is really meant is 'do your best with a reasonable amount of effort'.  A 5 point reading response does not require the same amount of effort that a college application essay does.  We actually talked explicitly about how much time was reasonable for different types of assignments and encouraged kid to try to get them done with that timeline as a guide.  It seemed to help - kid still sometimes takes longer than expected, but it's usually reasonable.  My younger, on the other hand, gets overwhelmed by the thought of an assignment where it isn't completely clear what to do.  We have had meltdowns over coming up with a thesis sentence.  This is more of an ADHD/anxiety thing than an academic ability problem.  You could be looking at something else, but we've had 2 different possibilities at my house.  

[SanDiegoMom]

My kid that was diagnosed ASD struggled in ninth grade with English class (at public school, after really streamlining it at home due to anxiety about writing) 

For him the things that didn't work were any assignments that were creative or personal -- the one that bombed was writing about another student and how one's impression of that person changed over time.  He struggled because it was so artificial - he didn't have enough time to get any impressions of the student enough for them to change but he also struggles with writing anything that isn't true.

As the writing got more frequent and more clearly defined, he did much better. Practicing on demand writing has made him so much more comfortable with writing in general, and clear guidelines with good feedback.  He even finally was able to write a personal narrative when he wrote his college application essays. But it took a lot for him to get comfortable doing it. 

Because of our dynamic, it was very important that he had someone else assigning the work.  School refusal had set in with certain subjects from homeschooling and he had to work through that with other teachers. Gradually the anxiety lessened and he was able to write.

That being said, he spends far more time on any English assignment, and finds them much harder because they can still be open ended. For instance, two pages of annotations might take him 45 minutes, because he is trying to get them perfect and (more likely) not get anything wrong. His twin sister breezes through them in about 10 minutes because she is able to put in ONLY the minimal effort required for any assignment:)